No sweat, Mr Green Genes. It's a common error. In fact, I'd bet that most people whose first language is English get it wrong.

Semantic precision is a dying art...which explains why the inability to communicate clearly, unambiguously, and effectively is a world-wide epidemic. Of course, semantic imprecision is encouraged by elected officials and bureaucrats because it makes it harder to pin them down and hold them accountable. The very last thing those clowns (and, increasingly, clownettes) want is an educated, literate populace that knows bullsh!t when they hear it.

Which reminds me of another excellent quotation. It refers to conditions in the U.S., but it's equally applicable to other nations as well:

"Giving money and power to Congress is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."– P. J. O'Rourke

Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 12:41 pmPosts: 14118Location: From some place in this area...

Vito wrote:

Mr_Green_Genes wrote:

Vito wrote:

p.s. "Quote" is a verb. These are quotations.

Non-English mother tongue person here. But thanks for the tip!

No sweat, Mr Green Genes. It's a common error. In fact, I'd bet that most people whose first language is English get it wrong.

Semantic precision is a dying art...which explains why the inability to communicate clearly, unambiguously, and effectively is a world-wide epidemic. Of course, semantic imprecision is encouraged by elected officials and bureaucrats because it makes it harder to pin them down and hold them accountable. The very last thing those clowns (and, increasingly, clownettes) want is an educated, literate populace that knows bullsh!t when they hear it.

Which reminds me of another excellent quotation. It refers to conditions in the U.S., but it's equally applicable to other nations as well:

"Giving money and power to Congress is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."– P. J. O'Rourke

Thanks, Vito. An interesting phenomena, also, is the attribution o quotations to famous people...

_________________The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

Thanks, Vito. An interesting phenomena, also, is the attribution o quotations to famous people...

Yeah. As a physicist, I'm especially irritated by the crap people attributed to Einstein, either by outright falsehood, or by misinterpretation via taking his remarks out of context. One example is the lie that he was an atheist. He wasn't. He rejected the notion of God as depicted by most organized religions...but an atheist? Gimmee a break.

When he was asked why he worked in physics, he replied, "I want to know the mind of God."

Tesla almost became the Edison of the day with Tesla's AC current vs Edisons DC current debate,or is it visa versa? Either way they both gave us AC/DC.The power originating from the Niagra hydroelectric power plant lit up New York with electricity for the first time.The first hydro-power plant of it's kind I believe.Another great Italian!

...Tesla almost became the Edison of the day with Tesla's AC current vs Edisons DC current debate,or is it visa versa? Either way they both gave us AC/DC.The power originating from the Niagra hydroelectric power plant lit up New York with electricity for the first time.The first hydro-power plant of its kind I believe.Another great Italian!

People were using DC long before either Tesla or Edison were born. Michael Faraday was using it in his laboratory when he invented his first "pile" (battery) in 1812. Ørsted used in when he discovered electromagnetism in 1821. Faraday used it again when he invented the first electric motor later that year, and again in 1831 when he discovered electromagnetic induction. Those are just a few examples.

Tesla's importance vastly outstrips Edison's as far as electrical power generation and distribution is concerned. Edison's DC system was a major FAIL for reasons you can investigate for yourself. Tesla invented the polyphase AC system we use today, and also the AC induction motor (independently of several others). Marconi probably couldn't have invented the radio without what he learned from Tesla.

...Tesla almost became the Edison of the day with Tesla's AC current vs Edisons DC current debate,or is it visa versa? Either way they both gave us AC/DC.The power originating from the Niagra hydroelectric power plant lit up New York with electricity for the first time.The first hydro-power plant of its kind I believe.Another great Italian!

People were using DC long before either Tesla or Edison were born. Michael Faraday was using it in his laboratory when he invented his first "pile" (battery) in 1812. Ørsted used in when he discovered electromagnetism in 1821. Faraday used it again when he invented the first electric motor later that year, and again in 1831 when he discovered electromagnetic induction. Those are just a few examples.

Tesla's importance vastly outstrips Edison's as far as electrical power generation and distribution is concerned. Edison's DC system was a major FAIL for reasons you can investigate for yourself. Tesla invented the polyphase AC system we use today, and also the AC induction motor (independently of several others). Marconi probably couldn't have invented the radio without what he learned from Tesla.

Thanx for the info Vito (another great Italian),I'll have to read up more on Tesla.From the little I've read he was a tenacious little Serb and all about AC,where as Edison was all about DC.

Yep...tenacious he was. And like any true genius, he had his share of compulsions. (You'll learn about them in O'Neill's book.)

Hey, I see you're at the "Home of the Mondavi Center", which I assume means UC Davis. So we're California compatriots, you and I...except that I'm way down here in the Southland (San Gabriel valley). Sorta remote neighbors.

Thanx for the info Vito (another great Italian),I'll have to read up more on Tesla.From the little I've read he was a tenacious little Serb and all about AC,where as Edison was all about DC.

Yep...tenacious he was. And like any true genius, he had his share of compulsions. (You'll learn about them in O'Neill's book.)

Hey, I see you're at the "Home of the Mondavi Center", which I assume means UC Davis. So we're California compatriots, you and I...except that I'm way down here in the Southland (San Gabriel valley). Sorta remote neighbors.

Good to know we're both Californos,Vito.I was born in SF and live in Davis now,are you a native too? As long as you southern boys don't want our northern water,we cool.

...Good to know we're both Californos,Vito.I was born in SF and live in Davis now,are you a native too? As long as you southern boys don't want our northern water,we cool.

Nah, I'm a transplanted New Yorker, by way of Baltimore. In fact, I lived and worked on the west side of Bawlamer (that's how the natives say "Baltimore") for a while, near Catonsville, MD...Frank's original home town.

But I never really assimilated into Baltimore culture. I was on the road for most of the 4+ years my home address was there. Got tired of touring, moved to SoCal to go back to school (physics), and married a California girl (a real native). That kinda settled me down.

As far as the water thang goes, we wouldn't need any of your water down here if the idiotic politicians and pseudo-environmentalists hadn't destroyed the nuclear power industry. Nuclear power was (and still is) by far the cheapest, cleanest, safest, most environmentally benign source of electricity for our guitar amps that the human species has ever devised. If the friggin' fear mongers hadn't whipped up such hysteria against it, power would be so cheap that we could get all the fresh water we need by desalinating ocean water.

In fact, power would be so cheap and clean water would be so plentiful that we could use electrolysis to turn some of the fresh water into hydrogen and oxygen, keep the hydrogen for fuel, and use the oxygen for wastewater treatment...or even release it into the air as fresh oxygen.

But that would have required a populace that had sufficient scientific literacy not to let themselves be bamboozled by the phony enviro-jerks who were well armed with more fear than facts. What we have instead is a populace whose scientific illiteracy is growing, not shrinking. The upshot is that SoCal is still stealing water from the north, a process that continues to be aided and abetted by the clowns in Hackramento...the same clowns that the idiot voters of this state keep returning to political office.

Which calls to mind a few other noteworthy quotations:"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." — Albert Einstein

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." — Winston S. Churchill

"The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem." — Milton Friedman

I was thinking a tsunami hitting the Diablo Canyon Nuclear reactor in S.Ca. That would make S. Ca. the glowing state.I'm not against Nuclear Power,the models work fine and it's cheap.It's Mother Nature that makes me nervous.Be it earth,wind,water or fire,no matter how you build it,Mother Nature will find a fault. (no pun intended) Maybe under ground would work better.I don't know.Then there's the ground water to think about.I do know they do generate a hell of alot of waste and Yucca Mt.NV. is almost full.What do we do with the waste? It would also have to be guarded from the dirty bomb threat too.More $$$'s.It scares people for a reason,it's dangerous stuff.With radio active waste (spent rods) it's not really a clean source of power either.imoIf we could harness the geothermal power in Iceland alone,we could power the world.Muwahhh!

Chernobyl (which was a genuine disaster) is not a rational argument against nuclear power. The Soviets designed it using graphite moderation, which is inherently unstable under the conditions in which they forced a meltdown by their incompetently managed test procedures. Under the conditions they created, it couldn't have NOT melted down. Read the facts for yourself, if you care to understand them. Also, the Soviets were never especially famous for their concern about their citizens. They designed Chernobyl without a containment building. It was a disaster waiting to happen. In other words, they were idiots. The U.S. has never used such designs for commercial reactors, and even the Russians don't build such reactors any more.

What happened at the Fukushima reactor complex was of a completely different nature. In that case, the wall that protected the emergency generators was about 1 meter too short to keep out the tsunami. In other words, no one planned on an earthquake (or resulting tsunami) of that magnitude. Actually, the reactor DID shut down as it should have. But without the emergency generators that provide the necessary power to complete the entire shutdown process, there was still an accumulation of pressure that had to be vented in order to prevent a far worse catastrophe.

I'm far less likely to point the accusing finger at the design engineers in Fukushima's case. There had never been an earthquake or tsunami of that magnitude in Japan. The facilities were over-designed to handle the historical worst-case scenario. It's easy to say, "They should have known better" after the fact. Well, now they do. They'll learn from their mistakes. That's how a great deal of what we call "progress" happens. The answer is not to run the other way in ignorance, and the fear it breeds.

As for the waste problem, we've been managing it successfully for more than a half century. Unlike the wastes from fossil-fired power (which end up in your lungs), nuclear wastes can be contained and safely stored with relatively little difficulty. And as far safety is concerned, naval vessels have been using reactors for nearly 60 years. There have been a few accidents, but there are always accidents with any power-intensive technology. The long-term safety record of nuclear still surpasses that of any competing technology.

Anyhow, if you genuinely want to understand exactly how it is entirely accurate to say that nuclear power has been demonstrably safer than other methods of large-scale power generation, the information is available. But anyone whose purpose is to cherrypick the facts to make an opposing case, regardless of its validity...well, there's plenty of disinformation available for that purpose too. I doubt that I'm going to persuade anyone otherwise in a few posts here.

In any case, it wasn't my intention to turn this into a unresolvable debate on nuclear power. All I can say is that where fear and ignorance are regarded as an acceptable substitute for actual information in planning for large scale power generation, there is a price for that ignorance.

As for the waste problem, we've been managing it successfully for more than a half century. Unlike the wastes from fossil-fired power (which end up in your lungs), nuclear wastes can be contained and safely stored with relatively little difficulty.

Thanx for the info Vito (another great Italian),I'll have to read up more on Tesla.From the little I've read he was a tenacious little Serb and all about AC,where as Edison was all about DC.

Yep...tenacious he was. And like any true genius, he had his share of compulsions. (You'll learn about them in O'Neill's book.)

Hey, I see you're at the "Home of the Mondavi Center", which I assume means UC Davis. So we're California compatriots, you and I...except that I'm way down here in the Southland (San Gabriel valley). Sorta remote neighbors.

So Vito,could you look up at the San Gabriel Mts. and see the smokin' fire and the cabin burning down? The whistle blower cop,turned "cop killer"was right above you,wasn't he?

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